


Farewell Wanderlust

by CombatBootsandDreams



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Book: A Guest for Mr. Spider (The Magnus Archives), Canon-Typical Behavior, Canon-Typical Violence, Hurt very little comfort, Injury, Jon is sad in almost all of this, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Alice "Daisy" Tonner Are Best Friends, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Needs a Hug, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist is Bad at Feelings, Multi, Past Georgie Barker/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Self-Loathing, Self-Reflection, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-16 19:08:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28836078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CombatBootsandDreams/pseuds/CombatBootsandDreams
Summary: Jonathan Sims never had enough time. It was always slipping through his fingers like sand through an hourglass. He could see it passing but could do nothing as it took more and more things from him. So he learned to measure everything in actions instead of seconds.Or: The many moments used to measure the life of one Jonathan Sims, The Archivist.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 5
Kudos: 51





	Farewell Wanderlust

**Author's Note:**

> Ummmm, I was having sad feelings about The Archivist and wrote this last night. Jon is very sad and very self-critical in this, heed the tags. Title from Farewell Wanderlust by The Amazing Devil.

Jonathan Sims never had enough time. It was always slipping through his fingers like sand through an hourglass. He could see it passing but could do nothing as it took more and more things from him. So he learned to measure everything in actions instead of seconds. How many pages he could finish after his grandmother called him up to dinner before she came up to check on him. How many books could fit in his backpack from his school’s meager library while still being fast enough to avoid the school bullies that sat on the front steps. Waiting for him to come out from under the safety of a teacher’s gaze.

That all changes after A Guest For Mr. Spider. Now, he measures life in baited breathes. Waiting for the thing around the corner to finish him off as well. For every knock and turning of the doorknob to be Mr. Spider opening up the door to make another grab at him. To devour him and leave him nothing but an empty husk, if that. To make him another mystery, another missing person’s poster. Everyone would forget soon enough, he was always such a restless child. It would be a tragedy, his poor grandmother, losing her only grandson so soon after both her children. A tragedy, but an easily forgotten one.

And ~~most~~ some nights he thinks he might deserve it.

He goes to school, gets good grades, and eventually goes to university. He measures his life in papers turned in and lectures attended. Stops thinking that every corner he turns is going to mark the end of his life, and starts to think that everything, maybe, is going to be okay.

When he starts dating Georgie he measures his life in hugs from her and kisses from The Admiral. Jon relishes that, holds onto this newfound freedom and loves it as hard as he can. Holds onto it until that too is gone. Slipping through his fingers less like sand and more like broken glass. Unfixable, leaving only the bloody gashes from where you kept a too-tight grip to remind you of what it used to be. The breakup is messy and loud and unbearably painful but something in Jon relaxes when it’s all over. Because now he doesn’t have to keep waiting for the sand to slip through his fingers, for someone else to die in his place.

He goes to work for The Magnus Institute. A research position he’s not even sure he wants. He fills his days with long hours and occult books he could have only wished for access to before and he thinks this might be what he’s been looking for. He tries to learn something about everything and but leaves the extensive architecture section alone because it’s not really in his area. ~~So he had an excuse to listen to Tim explain it.~~ Tim doesn’t seem to mind his confusion ~~willful ignorance~~ about architecture because everyone else gets annoyed or tunes him out when he talks about it after the second time, but Jon is always dutifully listening and sometimes taking notes like he’s back in University.

They get along well, Tim’s exuberant and well-read, and Jon’s studying habits are borderline tyrannical leaving little time for anything else. They complete more cases than anyone else in the entire research department without compromising quality. Sasha jokes that they’ve both gotten out of paying for their own drinks when Elias comes down and congratulates their entire team on the good work. Not that Jon goes out for drinks with the rest of his team. That would be unprofessional.

When he’s told to meet Elias Bouchard in his office Jon’s sure he’s done something wrong. He’s not sure what he did but he makes sure to change his mental timetable and puts the time he had planned to set aside next Friday evening to watch a documentary that had peaked his eye to working overtime. He really did like his job, and he didn’t know what he’d do if he lost it. Lost access to the knowledge in the institute.

It turns out he’s not about to be reprimanded but offered a promotion. A part of him is hesitant, a part of him knows that this is a bad idea, that he’s not qualified, and that _something’s wrong._ It’s the same part of him that knew that children’s book in his grandmother’s pile was dangerous. Something is wrong here but another part of him, the louder part of him, the part of him that’s been growing and festering and itching since that same incident starts to _howl_. Starts to bang and burn and tells him he has to do this. That he had to pick up the pen and sign the contract, that he has no other choice.

So he does. It’s the worst ~~best~~ choice of his life.

The archives are cold and dark and most of all, _messy._ There are files scattered everywhere and Jon thinks that there is no way he’s going to be able to do this. Not even with Tim, and Sasha, and the new guy that got specifically hired for this but he hasn’t met yet. He still thinks there is no way he’s going to be able to do this when he has to start recording things on tape recorder.

The nightmares start up after that. They’re fine, ~~he doesn’t sleep anymore.~~ He can manage, ~~he’s _terrified._~~ They get worse after Naomi Herne, not that he thought that was even possible. He spends as much time in the archives as possible. He dreams of fog and smoke and endless wandering, wakes up cold and shaking.

The feeling of being watched has followed him home now and he’d think it was Jane Prentiss after Martin comes running in screaming about worms, but he knows it’s not. Knows it’s someone else, knows it’s some _thing_ else.

When Jane Prentiss attacks Jon’s sure he’s going to die. That he’s going to die and that he wasn’t enough. Not enough to save his staff and not enough to save himself. When the first of the worms start to burrow into his body he only wonders if it hurts more or less than dying all those years ago would have been. Was living those extra 20 years’ worth it? 20 extra years he stole from someone else, 20 years he stole from his grandmother, from Georgie, 20 years he stole from the kid who’s name he didn’t even have the decency to remember, the kid who took _his_ life sentence.

He doesn’t die, and Jon’s not sure who’s years he stole this time. He’s not so sure if he _wants_ to know who’s years he’s stolen this time.

Martin finds Gertrude Robinson dead. Shot three times in the chest and Jon’s not sure if he wants to laugh or cry. When he finally gets out of quarantine and back to his flat he does plenty of both.

He goes to work, stalks his coworkers, loses friends, and tries not to start crying every time a statement won’t record on his laptop. He’s not sure if it’s out of fear or _joy_.

Helen Richardson begs him for help and Michael eats her anyway. Then Michael stabs him and it says something about his life now that the information he gains from that incident matters to him more than the blood loss and the itchy build up of new scar tissue.

Then he researches because that’s what he’s good at. Because that’s what he’s always been good at. Find’s out that Sasha’s been dead ever since Prentiss attacked and if the anger hadn’t kicked in right then and there, he’s pretty sure he would have just stopped. Would have just laid down on the ground and considered never getting up again, but it did. So he goes into the tunnels, axe in hand, and smashes the table.

This is an irrevocably bad decision, and Jon wonders how his life has spiraled to this, jumping at his own shadow and making one bad decision after another. 

Meeting Jurgen Leitner was _not_ on his list of priorities. The bone-deep fear from _almost dying_ and the satisfaction of _finally getting answers_ numbs most of the anger. Numbs all the times he had pictured what the man in front of him might have looked like. When Jon had been a teenager, young enough that knocking on doors still sent shivers down his spine but old enough that he could think about what had happened without screaming, he used to think about what he would do if he ever met Jurgen Leitner. Would he hurt him? Hurt Leitner like the man had unknowingly hurt Jon? Or would he grant mercy on him? That had all been before he’d found out that Leitner was supposed to be dead. Ages before he found out he _wasn’t_.

Seeing Leitner’s bloody corpse in his office is enough to numb _all of him_ till he gets to Georgie’s house, hands shaking and body close to following. He doesn’t know why he goes to Georgie’s house. His body went on autopilot and even after everything that had happened Georgie was still logged into his head as a _safe place_. That no matter what happened Georgie was _safe_ in some way that everybody else at the time just wasn’t.

Georgie wants to know what happened but Jon doesn’t know where to start so he just doesn’t. He doesn’t know how. What would he even say? She just sighs, says she’ll leave it alone for now, and leaves him to cuddle up against The Admiral like no time has passed. The Admiral’s bigger now but just as warm and for the first time in what feels like months Jon gets any semblance of good sleep with The Admiral’s purring like a motorboat in his ears. Stretched out like a warm blanket across his chest, alive and safe.

Jon runs clumsily through investigations. Jon reads statements even though Georgie hates them, but he can’t bring himself to stop. He’s drawn to them like a moth to a flame, a recorder in hand even though there shouldn’t be.

Jude Perry is loud and cruel, and he _trusts_ her for some reason he can’t possibly understand. She gives her statement. Then she gives him second and third-degree burns on his hand. She laughs at his agony and Jon knows he has two laughs that will now haunt his nightmares. He thinks Michael would be happy to have a friend when Jon dreams of nightmarish laughs.

Michael Crew drops him, sends him plummeting even though he hasn’t left his spot on the couch. Jon’s scared, but he’s so enraptured by his story sometimes he can forget that’s what he’s doing. Crew doesn’t scare him like the others, he doesn’t make him feel _safe,_ but he thinks he might escape this without permanent injury.

He doesn’t escape Michael Crew’s house without permanent injury.

Daisy shoots Crew in his own house and Jon’s pretty sure he’s going to die all over again.

He doesn’t in the end, die, that is. The cut on his throat burns and he’s pretty sure between that, the burns on his hand, and the remains of whatever Crew did to him he’s in more pain than he’s ever been in his entire life, but he’s _alive_. He’s alive and maybe if he keeps repeating that it’ll start to _mean something._

Elias tells him what he already knew, what he already suspected. It doesn’t help that Tim now _rightfully_ hates him and he’s so tired he can’t even deal with the angry yelling of Melanie and Daisy. It feels like his head is underwater, like nothing is quite settling in yet. Martin’s worried but Jon can’t bring it to himself to care, he’s just _so tired._

Jon doesn’t stop being tired, not for a long time.

He gets kidnapped by Nikola Orsinov, and Jon starts to measure his life since the last time someone _hurt him._ Even once he gets rescued by Michael turn Helen, even when he finds out he can speak and read French, even though he knows he can’t speak or read French.

When he gets kidnapped in America it barely even registers, just another kidnapping. He can barely get himself to even care. He meets Gerard Keay, and it might be the happiest he’s been in months, the happiest he’s been in years even. Not only is Gerard, _Gerry_ , nice, but he’s helpful. He’s helpful and kind and Jon doesn’t think the other man even knows how comforting that was. How the part of him that craves knowledge settles slightly with knowing all of Smirke’s entities, and how the still human part of him relaxes under the knowledge that someone didn’t want him _dead._

He finds out he needs statements to live now and isn’t that fitting. He heads back to the institute and relaxes under the constant watch and amplification of his patron’s power no matter how much he tries not to.

They came up with a plan to stop the Unknowing, they come up with a plan to stop Elias. Jon’s not sure if either plan will work. He starts to measure his life in days till the Unknowing.

Four people walk into a wax museum with an axe and explosives. Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, he wonders if Nikola would have liked it. Then, in a blast of heat he doesn’t remember anything. 

Jon wakes up, despite everyone’s better judgment. Jonathan Sims wakes up and even he’s not sure if he should have. No one wanted him to, not really. No one from Melanie, to Martin. He thinks that the last one hurt the most, that he’s fairly certain Martin hadn’t wanted him to wake up. He’s not sure if he blames him, Jon’s a monster now. He’s The Archivist, even if sometimes he doesn’t feel like it, he just feels like _him_. Maybe it’s fitting though, maybe it was some sort of supernatural justice for surviving his death sentence. Maybe that’s what happens when you spend so long waiting for the monster who’s going to finish you off. He’s spent so long looking into the void it’s not only stared back but consumed him.

He’s been waiting over 20 years for the other shoe to drop after Mr. Spider and Jon thinks, maybe, it just has.

\--------------------------

Daisy likes him. Alice “Daisy” Tonner likes him and if someone had told him before the Unknowing that Daisy Tonner would like Jonathan Sims he would have laughed them out of the institute. Would have cackled and crowed and she probably would have done the same. She does though, and Jon thinks he likes her too. She’s still flagged in his mind as _dangerous,_ but he knows that she wouldn’t hurt _him,_ and that’s enough for him. That’s enough because he can’t say the same for Basira or Melanie. Maybe it’s the same for Daisy because she spends more time with him than he thought she ever would, not that that was saying much.

And life goes on, and he thinks, maybe, just maybe, he could start to count his life in the amount of Archers episodes Daisy can force him to listen to.

Then everything goes to hell again, and Daisy gives in to The Hunt. He walks into and exits The Lonely with Martin hand in hand and Jon’s knees are about to give out. Basira tells them to go up to Daisy’s safehouse and Jon agrees even though just thinking about Daisy makes him want to sob, makes him want to curl up in a corner and cry. He wants to be selfish just this once, he wants _Daisy_. Wants that constant and quiet support, wants to feel her specific brand of safety again.

But he has to protect Martin now. Even though he feels hollowed out and awful, weak, and like his emotions went through the wringer and are all washed out.

Martin’s worse, barely present and so, so cold. All Jon can do is hold his hand and give him _time._ All Jon can do for Martin is give him the one thing Jon never managed to get, never managed to keep track of. One of the many things no one had ever thought to give him.

And Martin does come back. Martin tells him that he _loves_ him not that he _loved_ him and it takes everything in Jon not to start crying right then and there. In that safehouse that feels so much like Daisy, he’s surprised he hasn’t started crying already. Martin looks concerned so maybe he is crying.

Martin hugs him and yeah, Jon is definitely crying. Crying and shaking and Martin holds him as everything that’s happened in the last few years starts to pour into his tears, with murmured apologies, murmured begs for forgiveness, and Martin just holds him tighter. When the tears flicker out but don’t stop completely and Jon’s pretty sure the wrong thing could set him off all over again, Martin asks.

“What were you apologizing for?”

He asks it like he couldn’t have thought of a reason Jon would have to apologize when Jon could think of five off the top of his head.

For being so awful to you? For thinking you were a murderer? For not getting out of that building in time even though I couldn’t tell you right from left or up from down at the time because the Stranger is _awful_. For falling into a six month coma? For being a monster?

“Everything?” Jon asks, not sure if that’s what he means or not but too tired to debate it with himself at the moment.

“Everything you’ve needed to apologize for I’m fairly sure you already have. Are you feeling better?”

“I—I think so? I’m sorry, you didn’t need to stay for all of that. I made a bit of a mess.”

“What? I should have just left you sobbing on the floor after I professed my love for you? Really Jon? I didn’t mind, you obviously needed a good cry.”

Jon just buries his head into Martin’s chest. He’s gained back so much warmth even in the few days they’ve been at the safehouse, already surpassing Jon who ran cold at the best of times.

“What do you say to that, by the way? I mean I can guess but you must be tired of people assuming things about you by now.” Martin asks nervously, quietly, like he was worried about Jon’s reaction.

“I love you too.” Jon muttered quietly face going hot.

“You don’t have to sound so embarrassed about it.” Martin teased.

“I’m not embarrassed, it just, it’s been a while since I’ve said that to anyone.” Jon muttered again.

“Well, now you have a reason. If that’s good with you?”

“Of course that’s good with me!”

“Just checking, are you ready for bed?”

“Yeah.”

Maybe Jon could start measuring his life in ‘I Love You’ s instead.


End file.
